Firearms having rotary magazines are generally of relatively small calibre and their magazines accommodate relatively few cartridges, for example six shooter revolvers. Consequently their magazines have relatively small moments of inertia and the energy required rotationally to displace the magazines is correspondingly little. Therefore, such small calibre limited capacity magazines can generally be rotated effectively by making use of trigger pull to provide the necessary energy.
However, with larger magazines having larger moments of inertia due to a relatively large calibre or a relatively large capacity or both, the trigger pull required to displace them becomes correspondingly larger which is not conducive to ease of operation and accuracy in shooting.
Another problem with such large or heavy magazines is that when the magazine is rotated and arrested in its aligned position immediately prior to firing, the momentum of the magazine is transferred to the frame of the firearm. This causes the firearm to jerk, thus hindering aiming and steadying of the firearm. If the magazine is rotated to an aligned position immediately after firing before the firearm is cocked to fire a succeeding cartridge, a potentially dangerous situation develops, as the cartridge can be fired unintentionally, for example if the firearm is dropped.
Furthermore, the mounting of such larger magazines to the frames of their firearms becomes more difficult, especially if they are to be readily detachable from their frames.
It is an object of the present invention to alleviate at least some of the above problems.